Joanna Topor

When I was about 11-years-old I conducted a little experiment. I tried to live off chocolate. Every time I got hungry I would dig into my Easter stash. Needless to say this lasted only a few days and left me feeling not quite right.

After reading the first few chapters of his book, "Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America," I was convinced that I was related to Steve Almond in some capacity. I like Steve Almond. I liked him as soon as he told me about his father and how the man would eat Junior Mints one by one out of the box or sometimes send young Steve to the corner store to buy candy for the whole family for dessert. I, contrary to Steve, have not been blessed with a high-speed metabolism that allows me to consume chocolate continuously, but, just like Steve , I was blessed with a sweet tooth. One of my weaknesses has always been chocolate-covered nuts of any kind (almonds--coincidentally enough--are a favorite).

No matter what he may have you believe, "Candyfreak" is more than a book about a guy's love of candy. It is a thinly veiled purging of Almond's childhood memories and dreams. Almond is on a quest to find the Caravelle, a discontinued chocolate bar which he ate religiously in his youth. He describes it as "... a strip of caramel covered in a thick shell of milk chocolate, which was embedded with crisped rice." Sound familiar? It is not, Almond is quick to point out, the 100 Grand, not even close. The 100 Grand is a cheap imitation that will never, ever match the sweet satisfaction of Almond's beloved bar. When the Caravelle went away it took Almond's childhood with it and now he is on a mission, even if he doesn't know it at first, to revisit "the trauma of childhood," the staples of his youth and find some sort of hope for the future.

Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

By Steve Almond

Algonquin Books, 266 pages, $21.95

(2004-06-02)

Also by Joanna Topor

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